tea interference

good day to you


of all the quintessential elements of the English way of doing thing few can be so precious as tea, look you see. we take our tea quite seriously. how seriously exactly? very. or so i thought.

for some reason we, as a nation, have allowed interference with our tea. meddling and fiddling, if you like. whilst we have set standards in place for what is expected of tea, time and again we allow ourselves to be subjected to variations where no variations are solicited or, in fact, required.

examples of this have come my way of late. in order that you may not have to, or otherwise do so in a more informed way, i have elected to try them. may my comments on these interfered with tea be of benefit to someone, otherwise i have sacrificed proper tea drinking opportunities for little reason.

yes, quite a double whammy as you can see. in addition to this being that "green tea" business, which is acceptable for healing certain ailments, it has had certain elements added to it. or blended, i suppose, for "blended" seems to remain quite the "buzz" terminology for branding and advertising. elements which, in all honesty, many would consider unnatural in respect of tea.

so as this may be of a general level of interest i shall, in passing, look at the types of tea which are commonly accepted as being agreeable under the mandate of the English way of doing things. we, if you join me, shall look also at those who would lead our nation. the most important function of a leader is surely, indeed after all, to preserve the English way of doing things and that means to be a defender of a tea.

which poses a problem with the incumbent, and i use this in the dictionary defined capacity only, leader of our nation. indeed, the UK.  as she, the wicked and spiteful Theresa May, loathes and detests the English (probably all UK) people, it would not be a shock to me to learn that she finds tea to be revolting. nothing, after all, seems to please her.

except, maybe, Italians. the above was taken during her celebrated (by Theresa May) 'Florence Speech'. whereas no one was particularly interested (except her) in what she said, there was a quaint moment in the "question and answer" section after it. during that she pledged to protect the interests of Italian nationals in the UK, post-Brexit. her motivation for this was along the lines of that she believed some of them lived in her constituency, and that she had met one or two, and found them to be "frightfully pleasant".

this she does, of course, whilst refusing to safeguard or protect the interests of British nationals living in the UK. i know this as fact because, as i have mentioned before, my family is at risk of being torn apart due to 25% of it being non-British and non-EU. this risk is less of a risk and more of a very direct and personal threat from Theresa May. for it was she what brought in such Draconian laws that care not a single calorie of concern for the wellbeing, happiness or way of life of British citizens who may be affected by it.

i digress some, only no i do not. the exciting thing about writing this now, some two weeks before it will go "live" on this blog, is that Theresa May (and blessed be this day) might not be Prime Minister by the time anyone but me reads this. apparently there is a perpetual threat that sees every chance she will be ousted, thrown out and disposed of. i really quite like to think this makes her miserable, depressed, scared and sad. that's exactly how she has made people like me and my family feel with her treatment of us.

so, anyway, tea. before we get on to the tricky business of looking at what these two fiddled with ones are like, let us now consider what is fit and proper tea under the terms of the English way of doing things. first and foremost of these is this.

ladies and gentlemen, behold the crown jewels, the jewel in the crown, the most excellent of tea available, Yorkshire Tea.

how is it known that this is the very finest of tea available? quite simple, really - it has Yorkshire written on it. a universal truth accepted in this world and beyond, in this lifetime and those to come, is that Yorkshire represents nothing short of the best and finest of everything. any who choose to argue with this must do so internally, for they have elected to do this out of pure jealousy and thus no one wishes to learn of their bitter resentment.

quite why i would drink anything else isn't really a mystery, i suppose. i was presented with alternate, other, lesser tea for free. to not drink it would be a shame, and rob me of something to write here.

on that note, then, let us proceed to the first of these tea types which i reluctantly tried. a promise, though - later on we shall come to the other perfectly acceptable type of tea one may consume under the warrant of the English way of doing things, despite it not being of Yorkshire.

here, then, in a fitting "gameboy green", you may observe the packaging for the first i tried. it was, or if you like and should it prove to be in some way correct is, Twinings Salted Caramel Green Tea.

an initial concern, to be honest, was that this might get all sticky. what if, i postulated, they had elected to take an approach, them manufacturer types at Twinings, of ensuring the product "did what it said on the box" and had placed actual salted caramel within this rudimentary teabag holding, smooth and partially shining packaging?

they had done no such thing, i am pleased if not particularly delighted to confirm. no, as we shall see quite shortly (at least if you continue to read and observe this), it was more that the green tea, or tea of green, was infused or otherwise "blended" with  scent of what it is to be salted caramel, rather than adding actual, full tilt salted caramel to the teabag. this is true of the business end of the teabag and all secondary concerns, such as that quaint little string and the tag on it. but, at this stage you would rather probably wish to just see the image promised rather than read my somewhat lacking description of it all. so bet it.

indeed, as you can see, in many respects this is just a quiet, normal, ordinary teabag on a string with a tag. except for not being Yorkshire tea, or the other which i shall get to, there is nothing wrong with it as such at this particular stage.

what will happen if, ha ha ha sorry, no, when Theresa May falls from power? speculation suggests that the party she represents, even though like a lot of us they for the most part do not seem to particularly care for her, the Conservatives, will clutch at and cling to their ruling role. as for who may be their new leader, it seems a choice between a posh buffoon called Boris Johnson or a posh intellectual type called Jacob Rees Mogg. if i were a gambler, my money would be on the latter, as for some inexplicable reason he is quite popular and not nearly as rude to the Chinese or others.

the most important thing Lord Jacob, son of William, will need to do as new leader of the recently restored or rechristened British Empire is to determine the direction of tea.  wholeheartedly believe, or in my imagination think, that he will insist on a restoration of the class system.

under Jacob's brutal but we are told to say it is fair rule i have every confidence that "posh" tea, such as that which is both green and infused with the aroma of salted caramel, shall be the preserve of the wealthy, the elite, the landed gentry and select members of the ruling class, the latter subject to which school they attended. it would, to Jacob, to be insulting to expect the ignorant, peasant like and deeply uneducated ("none of them speak Latin") working classes to be able to understand, comprehend or appreciate the finer nuances of the more splendid tea.

for the most part, under his excellency Emperor Jacob, unless you are quite posh the likes of you and i shall be expected to toil the land, so that the elite of our nation may have the finest of crops on which they may feast. but in his wisdom Jacob shall be kind and generous. on four instances of each year - the days which commemorate the birth of Jesus, the birth of our reigning Monarch, the birth of his excellency Jacob Rees Mogg and the day which celebrates the coming to power of Jacob Rees Mogg - the peasant lower classes shall be permitted to drink 1 (one) cup of tea to mark the instance.

this shall of course be coarse, low standard quality tea, made for the most part of sweepings from the floors of the factories in which the more talented of the proletariat shall be set to work to make finer tea for the upper classes. but this shall be tea all the same.

whilst i know many of you are now distracted, being all excited about what having Jacob as a ruler shall be like for us all, perhaps i should get back to the subject of salted caramel green tea. to wit, i wonder, perhaps you are wondering of it is any good or not.

happily i shall confess that the aroma, the scent or if you like the smell of it is a most splendid thing. very pleasant it is, carrying with it, as you may well expect, the strong sense of salted caramel. for gluttonous types such as i this is a very lovely thing indeed to have trouble your nose.

this, alas, does not translate into quite so tranquil a consumption experience. one must always remember that the benefit of green tea is medicinal, and by some inexplicable law all medicinal consumption must be harsh. brutal, even. whilst the first sip is somewhat nice the aftertaste is, i am afraid, quite like all green tea. decidedly unpleasant, and leaving one with a sense that they have just willingly taken into their mouth water which has been blended with cheap recycled paper.

oh, undoubtedly i have drank worst tea in my life, and with a degree of certainty i would say that it has been green tea, or some other variation of medicinal based tea. for the life of me, though, i cannot recall a specific instance.

now let us go on to the other form of tea which is not from Yorkshire but is perfectly acceptable to drink under the remit of the English way of doing things.

quite exquisite. splendidly sensational, if i may so boldly be slightly Australian in expressing my admiration for the above. of course, many you would have anticipated this when i speculated on a non Yorkshire Tea that would be acceptable to consume. this is, but of course, tea by Fortnum & Mason. which makes it decidedly more lavish and superior to all others, except Yorkshire.

one should really always keep a steadfast supply of Fortnum & Mason tea in their home. this provision may be most useful should a member of the nobility, a viscount or other such royal concern happen to drop by. serving such guests might give them notions or ideas that are decidedly below their station by birth, and could disrupt if not corrupt our social order.

towards Twinings Cherry Bakewell Green Tea, then, for that is what they have called it. presumably they have done thus as the intention was to bring together the medicinal benefits of this green tea business with the scent of that most popular of tart variations, the cherry bakewell.

at least this was my most sincere and earnest of hopes before i proceeded. there was the fear, of course, that they might have tried to cram an actual cherry bakewell into the teabag which housed the ostensibly green tea. such an action is not one i would put beyond the remit of barbaric branding and marketing executives, for they would do absolutely anything which they believed would draw large sums of money in their direction, allowing them to perpetuate a life full of horn rimmed spectacles, "power" shaded braces, flashy ties and an overt reliance on illegal narcotics imported from the relevant nation or nations which form the magnificent continent of South America.

phew. no. i am delighted to confirm - visually, as point of fact, just now - that my initial assumption was of course correct. normally my assumptions are proved such, and i should really learn to embrace this more. upon opening up the teabag packaging - lavish as it is - the evidence made clear that it was an "infused scent" of cherry bakewell that was present, and not an actual cherry bakewell. something of a bittersweet revelation, in truth, for i was somewhat peckish at the time.

here in the above you may freely observe the unbrewed, if you like naked, cherry bakewell green tea teabag. inhibitions are all lost, to be sure, with the safeguarding, glossy packaging now well and truly behind it.

my first reaction to this was that the scent is not so strong or pronounced as was the case with the salted caramel. a secondary reaction would be that it had a sense more akin to vanilla that it did cherry. my (considerably) half speculated that this might be the case, and i take every delight in confirming, once again with such a matter, she was correct.

what if the fall of Theresa May is so catastrophic that we have yet another election? many say that this is most likely, and many of the many who speak such are confident that Jeremy Corbyn will take his Labour party into power.

how will Jeremy Corbyn react to the challenge of being national protector of tea?

there will be many changes under Jeremy Corbyn. some of them will make his rise to power all worthwhile and interesting. for a start, i suspect his first move will be to remove the term "Prime Minister" as it sounds too superior. instead he will encourage all to call him "Chairman" instead, reflecting how he is the most equal of all the Comrades. the UK shall be renamed the British Union, but when some social media equality warrior points out that this is racist he shall, for the sake of ease of reference, declare the new name to be the Soviet Union.

under the rule of Chairman Jeremy the workers, or if you like the proletariat, will be free to drink tea. in the interests of equality, fairness and the good of the Union, however, this tea will be streamlined. only the most superior of tea - the fruits of our hardworking nation - shall be made available for the people to consume in their happiness.

bourgeois concerns such as cherry bakewell anything, never mind flavoured tea, will be banned. such opulent luxuries will be viewed with contempt, dismissed as mere weapons of the class system to suppress the masses. reluctantly, of course, his supreme excellency equal Chairman Jeremy shall find it necessary to keep certain reserves of prohibited luxuries. this will be to appease the industrial elite, to entertain filthy foreign dignitaries and to provide sustenance to the politburo during meetings. they must taste these things so as to confirm that they are bad and not suitable for the people.

is there anything wrong with me? lots of things, i suppose, but nothing that i would think green tea would fix. no, i am instead drinking this - or rather have drank this - all because it was given to me gratis, and so as i may write of the experiences here.

on, then, to brewing the cherry bakewell green tea. all things considered it struck me as wise to do this prior to any change in leadership here.

the scent whilst this tea, if i may call it tea, brewed remained decidedly vanilla. not vanilla in the colloquially used term to mean plain, but actual vanilla. real vanilla, if you like. my suspicion was that there was a mix up at the plant where they made this, and the packaging was supposed to have "vanilla" on it, not cherry bakewell.

on drinking this particular variation of interference i learned that it, mostly, had the same effect as the other one, that salted caramel one. there was, however, a rather feint, almost lucid sense of the taste of cherry mixed into it. so perhaps it is right that this is labelled cherry bakewell. although cherry may have been the more appropriate name, for there were none of the other elements one would expect with a cherry bakewell. depending on how much vanilla you usually have in your cherry bakewell items.

well, anyway, i think that is all i can say on the subject. certainly, to be sure, i suspect that there is only so much you would want to read. hopefully someone somewhere has found this approach to an aspect of the English way of doing things to be if not interesting then at least suitable to pass some time.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a completed class tree of glass

yo ho ho, hang on, that's not right

ho ho hooo, everyone, merry christmas (or close to it)



earlier this month i was, look you see, delighted to give you a glimpse of a most ambitious project. my brother, in his infinite wisdom, elected or otherwise declared himself to be the primary materials donator for a most splendid class tree of glass.

many of you will, i know, be looking forward to seeing this tree complete. and so here you go.

if you are one of those people who really, really like trees what have been made out of empty and most decidedly green beer bottles then there is every chance that you would consider the above to be truly magnificent. whilst it is not a subject i have given much consideration to, at least not prior to my brother sending these images, i would surely agree.

Richard, for it is he, more or less puts forward a balanced combination of dedication, aspiration and sacrifice to this achievement. at least he did so tacitly, i like to think, when he sent these images and said "look at what i have done".

the labour and sacrifice were not his alone, of course. making a class tree of glass requires a team effort. whilst other contributed, though, Richard reckons that he personally ensured "about 50% or so" of the bottles required to do this were consumed and offered. maybe 70%, was his follow up thought on the matter. 

i am sure you can all, one and all, forgive him for not knowing the exact number or percentage he contributed. whereas i am quite aware that statistics enthusiasts are big readers of this blog, surely things must have started to get a little hazy and wonky for Richard as he worked to empty the bottles.

as someone who seldom, if ever, drinks i cannot really comprehend the trials, tribulations and sense of doubt Richard must have gone through to create this. i can, however, appreciate the good effort and hard work. this i do, and hope you do so too.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

memories of a scary door

heya


just a bit of a "flashback" sort of thing, look you see. in this era of instant gratification and quick disposal to look at events just north of three weeks ago does feel nostalgic. so be it, this is the world we created or stood by and allowed to happen.

modesty, to be sure, normally prevents me from being all flash and showing off things what i do. the decorations, of sorts, what i did for all that halloween business did, however, get more than one compliment. it was around the time of the second and final of such compliments that i thought i had best take some pictures, then, to share here.

harumpf, i say, or however one spells it. on my side, as i do all of this, it has loaded up the "portrait" images in a decidedly "landscape" mode. well, maybe it comes around the right way as you view, or you shall just have to jolly well tilt to look. strange, as blogger has been quite well behaved of late and has shown the pictures the right way around.

anyway, yes. halloween decorations. as such. i wouldn't say that i did anything particularly special or planned, but rather just shoved a variety of items, mostly off of Poundland, on the door.

whilst we are in the same space of time area, but of course November 5 fell a few weeks ago. for me, mostly, for 26 years now, November 5 has all been about a concert i went to. one that i make reference to here every now and then.  for regular, more well balanced people with more of a sense of perspective, however, the day is normally associated with Guy Fawkes and all that "bonfire" business.

our contribution to this is mostly not to add any further to the general disturbance celebratory fireworks and bonfires causes. instead, then, the boys make merry with some sparklers that i purchase, as and when they remind me to do so. which they did this year a day or so before the day they should have been ignited.

am i anti-fireworks? not as much as i am anti-causing distress or harm to animals and pets. fireworks are a most splendid thing, but i do think they should be the preserve of organized displays away from residential areas, rather than happening in the gardens of residential areas. that way people who wish to see them can go and do so, and people that want no part in it may all remain at home undisturbed.

the door once more, then. sideways again on my side, but perhaps it looks the correct way around for you as and when the page loads up. hope so, otherwise sorry for the crooked neck.

indeed i did get more than two compliments on it, but not many. some of this celebration was tempered by one of the children who came to our door to request sweets calling me either Jeff or Geoff, depending on which spelling you prefer. no, that is not my name. yet it is likely that if my class door decorations are spoken of in conversation somewhere, a bloke called Jeff or Geoff is getting the credit rather than me. even though i am that person they speak of.

another image of the boys doing their thing with the sparklers, then. ostensibly that has been added here to say that this is it for this post, more or less, bar some more words.

no, at this stage i have not started planning for halloween of next year, for their is no certainty that i shall make it that far. if i do, and i hope that to be so, then i have every confidence that i shall be able to put decorations up on the fly with ease once more.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the thirteenth

oh hello there


one of the most enduring, and indeed endearing, myths of modern British society is the existence of a 13th episode of the celebrated TV show Fawlty Towers. and let me make something clear at the start, look you see. absolutely no evidence exists which says that this is so. if you have come to this post via one of them Google things hoping to find it, no.

instead, then, this is a post looking at the myth. whilst it won't be an extensive, definitive or exhaustive look, it will i trust be of interest to fans of this show, or those who, like me, keep hearing all about this bizarrely legendary episode. or, indeed, episodes, as we shall see.

to start with, the "facts". only two series of Fawlty Towers were made, with each featuring six episodes. six priceless, wonderful episodes of comedy gold. the first series was broadcast for the first time in 1975, with the second and final being broadcast in 1979. an important thing to note is that the screening of the second was disjointed, with the final episode being shown several months after the first five. this was down to virtually every aspect of British life being affected by industrial action here, there and everywhere.

exactly where did the idea of a 13th episode existing come from? quite possibly the creators of the whole thing. when John Cleese and Connie Booth announced the second series it is reported that they said they'd written "several" scripts. perhaps this all started by the more literal members of the world taking "several" to mean "exactly seven". 

as we will get to, there are people out there who claim to have "seen" this thirteenth episode. so, then, surely we know what the plot or premise of it must be or must have been? yes. and no. different accounts speak of entirely different episodes. should all of these incidents of people seeing a "never screened" episode of Fawlty Towers be accurate, then as point of fact there is one half of an entire series sat unshown to us, the simple public.

the most popular three, with my comments, are -

The Robbers - as in a robbery takes place at the hotel, and the episode is all the comical farce which could surround it. plausible, but i am not certain that Mr Cleese and Ms Booth would have written an episode bearing similarity to an earlier one, in this instance that one with the confidence trickster.

The Blackout - a topical episode, where the entire thing happens mostly with just voices over a black screen. if this existed, it would have been a sharp and timely comment or "dig" on the power cuts (and cuts to everything else) that affected Britain in the late 70s due to rampant industrial action. all episodes were, however, written quite some time before such things became part of life.

The Demolition - which would be the episode to end it all, with the plot being that the hotel was demolished. not much room for comedy, you would think, and interestingly this only got mooted as the 13th episode around the time of the "real" hotel actually being demolished, i think in the late 90s or at some stage in the 2000s

what of those who "swear down" or in other ways with "no word of a lie" claim to have, honest, seen this 13th episode of Fawlty Towers, irrespective of which of the three? invariably it is always at the house of a friend, who had a friend that worked for the BBC and had smuggled a video cassette of it out. usually this is always a friend that cannot for some reason be reached, and no details of the miscreant BBC employee were ever obtained.

quite a flight of fancy, designed to make the storyteller sound cool and well in on a top level secret that much of the nation would like to be part of.

the stories told could be manipulations of time and memories. under no circumstances would i ever claim that i saw anything rare or out of the ordinary regarding Fawlty Towers. i do, however, have distinct memories of seeing John Cleese and Andrew Sachs perform in character outside of the show in the late 70s or early 80s. my memory is of them doing a very short, comedy snippet thing, playing golf near where some cars pass. i think it was shown on Grandstand, which would make sense as they did things like that - i think they had Mike Yarwood do an impression of Brian Clough at one stage.

however, i may well be mistaken. i've searched the internet and cannot find a single word written by anyone which suggests they saw the very same thing. 

so how do we know for sure that there really is not a 13th episode of Fawlty Towers? purely because we have not seen it. such a thing would be, due to the enduring and perpetually increasing popularity of the show, be worth a goldmine. had it existed, it would have been the crown jewel what John Cleese would have cashed in when his Ronnie Wood style divorce caused him all sorts of financial problems.

also, people have actively looked for it and not found it. there are accounts of people who trained and worked at the BBC purely so that they may access the vaults and find this episode. all that has come from that is long and fruitful careers, forever tainted with not finding what would surely be the veritable holy grail of British television.

beyond all of that, a cast and crew and audience would have been involved in making this 13th episode. and yet no confirmed or proven case has ever come up in regards of accounts of it. you can conspiracy theory this all you like, but there would be absolutely no value in the effort or cost involved in keeping all involved in a presumably buried 13th episode a secret.

the desire for a 13th episode to really exist is such that something of a cottage industry has stemmed from it. over the years some have dined out on the fact that they can tell the story of seeing it. someone took it as far, at one stage, to write a book on the subject, complete with what they claimed was the "legit and true, honest, no word of a lie" script for the episode.

as someone who is effectively a lifelong fan of the show i would like nothing more than most of this article to be wrong. it would be amazing, man, if one day all of a sudden the shroud of secrecy was dropped, and that the unscreened episode or indeed episodes of Fawlty Towers were shown. alas, this simply isn't going to happen as they simply seem not to exist.

one of the golden rules of entertainment - a law that is frequently ignored or broken - is to always leave your audience longing for more rather than having them bored. the twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers that are real and exist are the personification of this. with that in mind, it is of little or no surprise that many fans over the year have hoped, dreamed and fantasised over more existing.

well, there you go. hopefully this has been of interest to some, and sorry that it's conclusion about any episode existing being a disappointment!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

debated day of release

howdy pop pickers

so, another day of release adventure. to be sure. yes, look you see, this all did happen, as it were, on the actual day of release - i am just a trifle late on reporting on it, i suppose. which is kind of fitting, as it was somewhere north of 36 hours after purchase before i got to actually hear it.

what, or if it is right to say it as such which, record was the object of my attention to purchase on its day of release, via HMV? the new album off of Morrissey, entitled Low In High School. despite England, nor the wider UK, not having "high school" as such, but rather comprehensive or these new fangled "academy" things.

something, perhaps, of an unexpected new album off of Morrissey. why? well, from what i can remember he's had a bit of a health scare in recent times. also, of course, a bit of a battle with his previous record label, Harvest, who released his last album, World Peace Is None Of Your Business back in 2014. i say "battle"; from what i remember Morrissey took to wearing t-shirts and such telling the record label to f*** off. even by his confrontational standards that didn't quite bode well for him securing a new deal. but, Morrissey is Morrissey, there is an audience, someone will invest to sell his records.

if at this stage you are in a bit of a rush and just want to know whether or not the record is any good, the answer is yes, very. probably the best off of Morrissey since the much vaunted and heralded "comeback" album, the superb You Are The Quarry.

for those not in a rush, or just who for some reason quite like reading my musings on subjects such as this, let us have a look at some more about it then. or, at the least, the experience of buying and listening.  to start with here we go with the confusion of where one may find the record for purchase within the realm of HMV.

no, indeed yes, music seems to have become that little but more marginalised by HMV. whereas once you walked in an the new music releases confronted you straight away, now they are shoved in a corner, with the previous "trending", "hot" and "chart" sections all consolidated into one. the net effect of this confusion for me was to think perhaps i had got it wrong, that Morrissey put his new album out the friday before and it was now in the top ten. no, it's there, sort of in the middle, suspiciously wedged between Roy Orbison and ELO,  presumably because that was where HMV thought it best to place it. or assumed that it would be just fine there.

actually there was some debate as to whether HMV would stock this record. yes, in this day and age a record shop contemplated not stocking an album which had a market. why had they considered this? a concern that the cover, featuring a child holding a placard saying "axe the monarchy", whilst clutching an axe outside what would seem to be Buckingham Palace, "might cause offence".

echoes of the infamous Journal For Plague Lovers off of the Manic Street Preachers, then, where apparently there was a concern that some people might view the record cover as something that it was clearly not. in the case of the Manics it was sold in a slip case to cover the "offending" art; Morrissey as you can see is just sold as-is.

this is not the debated part i speak of in the title, though. no. more of a monetary, fiscal and committent one. let me not bore you with my plight or the sorry state of my life, but a reality is that december, which dawns soon, for me represents a need of expenditure on such things as birthdays and that whole Christmas business. my dedication to Morrissey would surely test all of this, and put a dent in it. but i did it anyway, hence the fact that this post exists.

when the tracklisting was announced it was declared, by such luminaries as those who dispense the benefits of their wisdom via that twitter business, to be "the most Morrissey set of song names ever". does it follow up on that, if we for the sake of a quiet life accept that to be the case, by being "the most Morrissey sounding record ever"? partially, yes.

the first two tracks, which i first heard when i first heard the album as late as the sunday afternoon coming after the friday day of release, are superb. My Love, I'd Do Anything For You and I Wish You Lonely are belting, full on glam rock sound loving Moz. the quality, of not the overt glam influenced sound as such, carry on all the way to and through Spent The Day In Bed, which was the first "single" off the record, or should i say song available for a digital download thing.

one review i saw suggested it's a case of "first half great, second half not so much". i am not entirely sure i agree. yes, the better songs are within the first half of this recording, but that does not mean what follows towards the end is bad. they are just not as immediately genius or as strikingly brilliant.

if i were pushed and requested to highlight the low point of the album then it probably would be When You Open Your Legs. just dull, really. but even then, i suspect that this might well have been the entire point of it.

quite a nice chat with the lady in HMV who accepted my coins of money in exchange for me being able to take ownership of the record. in this day and age of "streaming" and various less than legal downloads she asked if i had heard the record. i said no, bar the single / "digital download" what i bought earlier in the year. further, i explained that i had pretty much been purchasing any and all Morrissey releases, including his disastrous debut novel,  on autopilot since days before she was born. in turn she advised me that she was looking forward to hearing it (as with all stores at present HMV is a bastion to the sounds of Christmas music), and was off to see the man himself in concert with her dad next year.

a partially amusing thought here would be the notion of taking my dad to a Morrissey concert. other than it being wonderful to see my dad, i suspect the evening would be a lot of hearing "what the bloody hell is he on about", "why is it so loud" and "why is everyone just stood chanting his name". my mum, however, as i recall, considered Morrissey, as do many others, to be rather handsome, and would no doubt enjoy the experience.

beyond that, it is splendid to know that there is a generation - not just one that came after The Smiths but also realistically after the halcyon, celebrated (i would say right up to about 94, 95) early stages of his solo career that are "in" to Morrissey and excited to be seeing him still on the go.

will this record please the locked in, existing Morrissey audience? yes, i would think so. could this record win him any new fans? maybe, i am not sure where them kids of today get to hear "new" music. any chance of this record making a high chart position, as HMV seem to have already given it? unlikely. excellent if it makes it into the top ten, but right now the sales push seems to be for an assortment of younger pop stars with records out, as well as the inevitable Christmas theme releases or albums, looking at the Roy Orbison dubbed over an orchestra shenanigans, that immediately suggest they are ideal "this will do" Christmas gifts for the elders of assorted families.

having a new Morrissey album in the world is a most splendid thing. from my side i am not inclined to take it off the stereo, having listened to it somewhere north of half a dozen times in the last two or so days. which is a shame, as i suppose i should be listening to something for the next edition of my unusually popular random bowie series, but no matter.

unless at the last minute The Stone Roses take my advice (from the last 2 or 3 years) and release Christmas With The Stone Roses, just one more day of release ahead for me this year, then - U2 on the very first day of December. i am giving Noel Gallagher a miss, then. other than the first two songs to emerge from it not being all that inspiring, i note with interest that he has taken to telling fans to "f*** off and not buy it", so i won't.

it would be decidedly pleasant if for some reason all of this was of interest to someone somewhere out there reading this.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

an important message from ant or dec out of ant and dec

hello again


celebrity endorsements are, look you see, nothing new. each and every one of us, to be sure, needs to make some coins of money. this rather distorted way of life we have made for ourselves, whether our contribution to that is tacit or explicit, demands such. whilst some accuse artists and celebrities who do endorsements as "sell outs", i tend to be perfectly agreeable with this move. if someone felt they could use my endorsement to sell something then i would surely sign up, happily accepting the payment to promote whatever it is.

the nature of endorsements changes over the years. one can see this quite clearly when it comes to the promotion of cigarettes and other such tobacco or nicotine related products. whereas once the famous were called on to show of smoking as a very, very good thing, evidently now in this more informed and enlightened age they are utilised to show that it is in fact quite a bad thing.

it was quite a surprise to see either Ant or Dec out of Ant and Dec take the decision to appear in one of the latter examples of that paragraph above.

rather like a substantial number of the UK population i neither know nor care which one exactly is Ant and which one is Dec out of Ant and Dec, but i can recognize them on sight, so to speak. as far as i am aware it is not like they are apart all that often, except i think one is in a clinic, so it's not like you would need to know which is which. yes, you can in this respect think Jedward, but without the singing and rather hyperactive overtures.

as you can see quite clearly above, and perhaps a little clearer below, behind that oxygen mask, laid in what is ostensibly a hospital bed or similar in a medical facility, Ant or Dec out of Ant and Dec is showing one of the potential down sides to smoking. which is to say a painful illness, most likely followed by a demise or if you like death.

quite why Ant or Dec out of Ant and Dec would be so enthusiastic to promote the dangers of smoking on warning packs for cigarettes is something i do not know. but, on the whole, you would have to say that this is admirable and quite public spirited of them. assuming, of course, agreeing to do this hasn't seen them make too much money off of the NHS for agreeing to appear.

what or who is an Ant and Dec, my many non-UK based readers might be asking? apparently they are quite popular light entertainers. normally they can be found endorsing and advertising gambling things such as casinos, the money from which is presumably helping pay for 50% of Ant and Dec to be in a clinic to battle various addictions.

i do know that the career, or careers, of Ant and Dec started in controversy. they rose to fame in a late 80s TV show called Byker Grove. it was a show that was passed off as a "homage" to the infinitely superior The Kids Of Degrassi Street out of Canada,  but for fans was seen as little more of a rip off. some suggested that all they really did was just replace the cosmopolitan mix of Jewish, Italian and maybe French kids with a bunch of Geordies.

anyhow, they have had a far more successful dramatic and light entertainment career than what i have had, so please don't see any of this as a dig or slur on their good name and character. by doing what they do they entertain millions, no matter whatever the hell it is that they actually do.

curiously in this day and age i note a common trend across the pictures they use as warnings on cigarette packets. this is the unmistakable trend that each and every person who appears in such images is white, or should you prefer classical definitions Caucasian or  European.

i don't get how they get away with this. we live in an era when and where, rightly and wrongly in certain instances, each and every element of modern life stands open to the accusation of racism or some form of cultural appropriation. and yet no one seems interested in the fact that ll cigarette warnings show just white people suffering the commonly accepted bad side effects of smoking.

why is this, i wonder? do they think people would not take warnings seriously if they featured non-white people? is it more sinister, in that the powers that be only care of warning the white members of the human race that smoking is bad? or do they maybe think that it is only white people what smoke?

no matter. we are here to observe the celebrity endorsement what Ant or Dec out of Ant and Dec are doing to warn people about the dangers of smoking.

well, at the least i think it is Ant or Dec out of Ant and Dec. it certainly looks like one of them. if it isn't, well, sorry for wasting some of your time here.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hola, por favor, ven a que me digan que me vaya a la mierda otra vez, gracias

hola querido lector

i confess culpability here. perhaps it is the case, look you see, that the little "think piece" i wrote on how the two (or so) hour war with Spain that loomed over Gibraltar would affect my quality haircare products that's upset them. no, i am not linking it, you can find it if interested.

who knew the Spanish could be so sensitive? so much for that matador, bullfighting spirit and sense of independence they are supposed to have.

yes, this is all to do with that bank who do not like me, save to use me as a conduit to waste their own time and resources. Santander, they are called. in a change from the above here is the link to the last episode with them, one that i vowed would be final. or so i thought.

yes, perhaps i should "opt out" via the link i have deleted. why, though, should i waste so much as a single kilobyte of data in doing that? not when the increasingly desperate texts such as these provide some mild interest.

going on my experiences, and here i would say it is worth clicking on the link in red above, any offer or requirement made in these messages is entirely irrelevant. from the 'Empire Building' approach of their HR staff to the decided lack of interest in the skills and abilities people as individuals have, they are simply not going to find the employees they want and clearly need with this harvesting approach.

my my, they are quite keen to let me know the contempt they hold me in. as i sat and wrote this an email followed the text message, just to make absolutely sure that they wanted me to know that they wished for me to come in and be ignored by them again.

maybe one day the penny shall drop for the Spanish; or otherwise whatever coins they use now. if that happens then i really rather suspect an advert will come out with this banking giant announcing that they are urgently looking for HR and recruitment staff - ideally people who understand that if you want to know what someone can do it is better to ask and see than it is to have them sit around a table and shout a very great deal.

no, i am not going to call or apply. they have farmed and harvested my details, to do what with i know not. but it certainly is not to get the right people for the job within the confines of their organization.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

random bowie - 1. outside

Howdy Pop Pickers


And so here we are again. Edition 11 of this series, look you see, which has proven to be more popular than I had imagined. Thank you one and all, to be sure, for taking an interest in my musings via the means of reading this.

In this edition, then, we return to 90's Bowie. The middle of the 90's to be exact, with the 1995 album 1. Outside. And a note on that here. Pedantic people will say that the album is supposed to be called 1. Outside. The even more pedantic people will say that the full title, as point of fact, is 1. Outside The Nathan Adler Diaries : a hyper cycle (lower case as per the spine of the CD). For ease of reading, let's just all accept that yes, that's the case, but from here on out in this article, or if you like blog post, it shall be known as Outside.

For fun, and as a kind of thank you to all of you who read these posts, there's a sort of "one of a kind" giveaway in this blog post. But we will get to that later on.

To start with (sort), then, as usual some fantastic facts on this record. Outside was the 19th studio album by David Bowie as per the commonly agreed method of counting and cataloguing them. It came out in 1995, two years after the double whammy of excellence that was The Buddha Of Suburbia and the better known Black Tie White Noise.  It marked a reunification, of sorts, with Brian Eno, with the two of them not being widely credited as working together since the "Berlin Trilogy" of the late 70s. At just slightly south of 75 minutes Outside is, by some distance, the longest David Bowie album to be released that was neither compilation nor a live recording.

Where to begin with this one? Sorry, this is quite likely to be all over the place. I am writing this a bit late into the month compared to others, so it's "on the fly". As is much of the album, I suppose.

It's what you could call a flawed album, where the many great parts do not add up to the superb whole those parts suggest. Far be it from me to be making this accusation - Bowie himself spoke of it as being "a bit too much" and expressed the notion that he should have released it as a double album, so as to give listeners a pause or break.

This was also an album Bowie was fond and steadfastly proud of. Brian Eno has spoken of how, somewhere around a year before Bowie passed away, the two of them chatting about the album. Both of them expressed regret that it appeared to have been "forgotten" about when people spoke of Bowie's illustrious catalogue. Well then, let this in some small way be a means of reminder.

When I first heard this record I didn't really like it. The opening was strange, the first two songs (Outside and The Heart's Filthy Lesson) were excellent,  then A Small Plot Of Land came along. It was monotonous, tinny "jazz odyssey" stuff and gave one a headache. And then you got the excellence of Hallo Spaceboy, only for it to be followed by more tinny "jazz odyssey" in the form of The Motel.

And then I read an interview with Neil Tennant out of the Pet Shop Boys. It was in NME. Two things stuck with me. One was an unsolicited spoiler he gave for the film The Crying Game, although in fairness the film had been out for some 2 - 3 years by then. The second was a comment on Outside.

By this stage the album Outside had been met with some criticism, or "meh" responses. In the interview Neil championed it. He declared it to be "the perfect album for headphones whilst jobbing". Now, then, I thought, or thought I. Whilst jogging has not ever really been a thing of mine, headphones have been. I made a tape of it, listened to it on my walkman and found it to be much, much better as a listening experience than on the stereo.

The above is of relevance to the giveaway promised to be part of this post. Stay tuned!

So anyway, the album. A concept album it is, or "hyper cycle", as David would have wished for it to reference. The premise is that society (not necessarily of the future, "it's happening now, not tomorrow" is a key lyric) has come to accept murder as socially acceptable in some cases. Should the nature of a murder be "artistic" in the eyes of a judging panel then the murderer would be celebrated and praised rather than sentenced and condemned. Ostensibly Outside tells a story of such an incident, as investigated by Nathan Adler.

What inspired this narrative? Bowie never said directly or overtly, but for those of us there at the time the influences are fairly obvious. Outside came in the way of things like the OJ Simpson murder trial - and indeed the trial of the Menendez brothers. Both became media circuses, making a mockery of the judicial system to varying degrees. Also, art was changing. Tarantino had changed things. He did this directly with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, indirectly with the scripts for True Romance and, of most relevance, Natural Born Killers. After a short period - say 1990 to 1992 - of Hollywood shying away from making violent movies, they were back in a way not seen before.

Of those influences Natural Born Killers is perhaps the most relevant. Certainly it is in terms of the audacious and brilliant soundtrack, curated and created by Trent Reznor. Musically, when not being all "jazz odyssey", the biggest influence on the sound of Outside is clearly Nine inch Nails, with many of the songs (chapters?) echoing the sinister, threatening, aggressive mechanical scope of The Downward Spiral.

No surprise, then, that Trent Reznor was called upon to deliver a remix - labelled the "alt remix" - of The Heart's Filthy Lesson for the first single. And yes, indeed, this was the song that was used for the end credits of Se7en, a film we are perhaps no longer allowed to watch due to certain allegations against one of the actors in it. But if we are, you will note that the opening credit music was Trent, with Closer by Nine Inch Nails being used. 

One of my favourite moments on Outside is Hallo Spaceboy. Which is interesting, as one of the least favourite things to do with the record is the Pet Shop Boys single release. The original on the album is an overwhelming blast of raw, audacious and aggressive sound, touching on drum and bass greatness. By contrast the single is an underwhelming, subdued affair with the song turned into a rather soft, banal Pet Shop Boys b-side. 

I suspect, however, that the remix was done with reason. This is all my own theory, so blame me if not so. My guess is that we were all supposed to understand Hallo Spaceboy as being "the third Major Tom song", following Space Oddity and Ashes To Ashes. That would explain the mashed up lyrics from Space Oddity appearing. Also, all of the song seems to reference earlier Bowie songs. The line "do you like girls or boys? it's confusing these days" echoes Rebel Rebel, and I have every confidence you can by yourself tie the "moon dust" references to another celebrated Bowie outing. 

The above I took in HMV, I suspect when I went to go and buy Liam Gallagher's debut solo album on the day after the day of release. If you can get the CD at that price new, then go for it. The penny south of £4 for it is all the more worth it when you learn that the cover is in fact a self portrait work of art by David.

Getting the album? OK. Let's take a break - and I promise I will discuss some more of the music as we go - and have a look at this "giveaway" I am offering. No idea if it is special or worthwhile or if anyone will take me up on it, but here goes.

Remember the part earlier on (as opposed to one you have not read) about how headphones seem to make Outside all the more better a listening experience? Well, as you can see in the picture above, I elected to honour that. Yes, I made a tape of the record to listen to again before writing this. Sure, it might have been easier to stick it on an iPod, but the tape is done now.

If for some reason you would like this tape, you are welcome to it. Please note it is strictly first come first served - I can't go making copies of this to give away.

Some rules? Sure. As postage for such would be south of £5 for me, what the heck, this is open to the entire planet. Please do not - and I mean this - leave any contact details on the comments section of this post. Rather just leave a comment saying "I am interested" (unless someone else has) and we can connect to get details via Google+. Alternatively, I suppose, you could get in touch with me via either of my verk websites, The Taper and Best Write. Great also, by the way, if you use my verk services - that's how I make my living, and that's how I am able to keep doing this, making it all free and clear of adverts appearing.

Yes, that is an excerpt from Outside off of the album Outside, playing on the tape which could be yours if for some reason you want it. No, absolutely not, the stereo is not included. You will have to sort out your own cassette deck to play the tape.

Right, hopefully will hear from at least someone and back to the album. And a return to the origins of it. Which are, frankly, a mixture of confusion and what can only be described as bullsh!t.

To start with the latter, the recording process. For some reason Bowie made a lot of noise about how this was all "done in the studio" with "no plans or preconceived ideas" brought in. This claim is utter nonsense. For a start the last song, Strangers When We Meet, is a re-recording of the song from 1993's The Buddha Of Suburbia.

Also, the whole concept and idea seems to stem from one of Bowie's more Spinal Tap moments. When Q magazine, back when it was good, asked Bowie to keep a diary for them, he decided his life was "too boring". Instead, then, he created a diary of someone called Nathan Adler. Whilst it has been some time since I read it, from what I recall yes, most of that diary ended up being the linear notes to this record, as well as making "a substantial" appearance in the lyrics.

Why is this Spinal Tap? If you can find the magnificent book Inside Spinal Tap. This contains a "diary" from Nigel Tufnel. He was also asked to write a diary for a magazine. When confused about what that should be, they showed him a sample of someone else, who had been skiing. Nigel misunderstood the example somewhat and so fabricated a story of him skiing for the magazine, instead of the hoped for diary.

The fact that Bowie also intended to do one of these albums a year for the next five years shows that some planning was involved. But, for reasons best known by Bowie alone (maybe it just amused him) he wished the world to think that Outside was the product of him and his musicians "slumming it" in a recording studio in Switzerland, with it all created by role playing scenarios.

One of the most exciting aspects of Outside was the "db" logo what David came up with for the single and album artwork. It's a great shame that it was not used any more after the Telling Lies single which preceded Earthling, an album I am trying to build up the courage to cover here one day. The logo is unmistakably priapic in nature, as if David was just saying "cock" to anyone at all who noticed it or thoroughly deserved to be told such.

An expressed intention of Bowie was that Outside, and the following four albums, would address and explore "pre-millennium tension". Perhaps this is why no further volumes ever came out. David was quite ahead in this respect, you see, as in 1995 virtually no one was aware of "pre-millennium tension". The year 2000 still seemed so very far away.

In retrospect 1995 was a peculiar, halcyon time. The Cold War was gone, with Russia neutered under the rule of comic figure Boris Yeltsin. After the early 90s Gulf War the Middle East appeared to have been "put in place" and posed no threat. China was really, really good at making shiny things cheap and selling them cheaper. Our friends in the USA felt so relaxed that they elected musician and prolific sexualist Bill Clinton to be President, rather than a politician. South Africa had Nelson Mandela as President and seemed at peace as a "rainbow nation". Here in the UK, we were all counting down to the next election, where it seemed a formality that bright young thing Tony Blair would become our leader and deliver wonderful days.Computers were not a standard in homes, either. They were not relied on for work. So there was no fear at all over something called a "Y2K bug" when Outside came along.

Thus, so it came to pass that David Bowie presented a, on the whole, collection of good to great songs to an audience which, in a sense, simply did not exist. Except maybe pop star jogging enthusiasts.

How does the album hold up today? Very well. But perhaps not as intended. I mean, I still have absolutely no idea what the story is behind this "concept album", let alone what the conclusion is. For telling a story, Tommy it most decidedly is not. The songs are, however, excellent.

An outstanding display of Bowie's vocals are here to be had. Oddly this is not so much the case on the two well known singles. Although the delivery of the line "daddy will you carry me, i think i've lost my way" on Heart's Filthy Lesson is a distinct high. No, instead discover his singing on songs such as Thru These Architect's Eyes, No Control, I Have Not Been To Oxford Town and the re-recording of Strangers When We Meet. There is the voice we all fell in love with. Or, if you like, there is the voice that I fell in love with.

Touring Outside looks like it was excellent. Alas, no, I did not get to see it. I should say now that this tour is very well documented. No official recordings have been released, although there are "quasi unofficial blind eye turned" bootleg CDs available on the web. Ultimately, You Tube is your friend - most if not all feature there.

A highlight of the Outside tour for many was the joint Bowie & Nine Inch Nails concerts. Nine Inch Nails were ostensibly the support band, but concerts featured Bowie singing some NIN songs, and indeed NIN providing the music for some Bowie songs.

The tour seems to have carried on all the way to just about the time David was ready to release Earthling. Some of the later shows featured songs that would be, or were intended for, that album. On this superb TV broadcast you should be able to hear I'm Telling Lies performed, ultimately released as simply Telling Lies. Bowie also performed the Tin Machine song Baby Universal on the later dates, as there was an intention to re-record it for Earthling. This was never released, and thus far no copy of the re-recorded song has surfaced. Reeves, if you are reading, share it, man.

So, is Outside a David Bowie album worth getting by you, the person who does not presently own it but are reading up and considering? Yes, I suppose, if you are the first to get in touch for the tape copy on offer. Also yes if you can find it at the price HMV were selling it for, or less. The whole album in its entirety is, as Bowie said, "rather too much" to listen to at once. There are far more good songs than average or poor on it; it's just that if you listen to it in one go the weaker songs feel like they drag on, dominating and distracting.

A curiosity, really. The sum is somehow less than the parts in isolation would suggest. It feels far too harsh to say it was a "failed experiment", then, although the lack of any further such "hyper cycles" suggest that Bowie saw it as such or simply got bored. To my mind "flawed experiment" feels about right.

Well, there you go. Episode 11 all done, and it has just dawned on me that I have referenced Bowie's Spinal Tap inclination on an album for this number that puts it into perspective, perhaps too much perspective. At the least, Bowie avoided going full tilt Spinal Tap by ditching plans for a "concept show" to tour the record with. What the world did not need was Glass Spider 2.

I have absolutely no idea what Episode 12 of this shall feature. Let me look at the collection and see what strikes me as one to listen to again and consider. Until then, then.......



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!